Apple's newest smartphone, the iPhone 4S, is a world phone powered by the company's speedy A5 processor, and features a new antenna design that can allow file transfers up to twice as fast as its predecessor, as well as voice recognition functionality for a new handsfree experience.

The new iPhone 4S is a "world phone," meaning it is compatible with both CDMA and GSM networks. Apple will not need to build two different models to be compatible with different carriers like AT&T and Verizon in the U.S., and Sprint has also been officially added as a carrier partner.

Apple has also expanded the iPhone lineup with a new 64GB model on the high-end, selling for $399 with a service contract. The 32GB and 16GB models remain priced at $299 and $199, respectively.

"iPhone 4S plus iOS 5 plus iCloud is a breakthrough combination that makes the iPhone 4S the best iPhone ever," said Philip Schiller, Apples senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. "While our competitors try to imitate iPhone with a checklist of features, only iPhone can deliver these breakthrough innovations that work seamlessly together."

One of the main selling points of the iPhone 4S is the inclusion of Siri, personal assistant software that Apple purchased last year. With Siri, natural language can be used to access information or accomplish tasks.

In one example shown at Tuesday's keynote, the query "What's the weather like today?" led to a forecast being provided via the iPhone. The Siri functionality is built into iOS 5 on the new iPhone 4S.

Apple said Siri is also smart about using the personal information users allow it to access. For example, telling Siri Remind me to call Mom when I get home it can find Mom in an address book, or ask Siri Whats the traffic like around here? and it can figure out where here is based on the current location.

Siri helps make calls, send text messages or email, schedule meetings and reminders, make notes, search the Internet, find local businesses, get directions and more. Users can also get answers, find facts and even perform complex calculations just by asking.

iPhone 4S includes an all new camera that Apple said is the most advanced optics of any phone. The 8 megapixel sensor has 60 percent more pixels so users can take amazing high quality photos with more detail than ever.

iPhone 4S includes a new custom lens, a larger f/2.4 aperture and an advanced hybrid IR filter that produce sharper, brighter and more accurate images. The Apple-designed image signal processor in the A5 dual-core chip is built for performance, and coupled with the features built into iOS 5, makes the camera one of the fastest on any phone.

With iPhone 4S, Apple claims the Camera app launches much faster and the shot to shot capability is twice as fast.

The new iPhone 4S will launch in the U.S., Canada, Australia, the U.K., France, Germany and Japan on Oct. 14. It will be the fastest iPhone roll-out Apple has ever had.

Quick Facts:
The A5 is a dual-core chip that allows CPU speeds up to twice as fast as the iPhone 4
It also features dual-core graphics processing that is up to seven times faster
The iPhone 4S has increased battery life up to 8 hours.
A new wireless system in the iPhone 4S allows the handset to intelligently switch between two antennas to send and receive data, improving call quality.
With its new system, Apple says the iPhone 4S achieves maximum theoretical download speeds of 14.4Mbps.
Apple said these speeds are competitive with current 4G networks.
The iPhone 4S also sports an 8-megapixel sensor for improved picture taking.
A new illuminated sensor gets 73 percent more light than the one found in the iPhone 4, and does it a third faster.
A high-end IR filter allows for greater accuracy and uniformity, while the handset also offers industry-leading quickness in snapping a photo.
The new camera will also shoot full-high-definition 1080p video, and will feature real-time video image stabilization and temporal noise reduction.
In one demo, Apple exec Scott Forstall asked the iPhone 4S to find a Greek restaurant in Palo Alto, Calif. The built-in Siri software returned a list of five restaurants sorted by rating.
Siri can also read information to users. In one example, the software read a list of notifications from the iPhone 4S.
The Siri system can also be utilized to make calendar appointments. It will even check if a user's schedule is free when setting up an appointment, and notify them of potential conflicts.
Information from Wikipedia and Wolfram Alpha can also be accessed through voice commands in Siri.
In another demonstration, Forstall asked Siri how long until Christmas. The "personal assistant" software responded: "82 days."
Siri also does dictation, as a microphone icon will appear anytime there is a keyboard on the screen. By tapping the microphone, users can speak rather than type.
Siri will come with built-in support for English, French and German. The software will be beta at launch, with more languages and services to be added over time.

Pricing & Availability

iPhone 4S comes in either black or white and will be available in the US for a suggested retail price of $199 (US) for the 16GB model and $299 (US) for the 32GB model and $399 (US) for the new 64GB model. iPhone 4S will be available from the Apple Online Store, Apples retail stores and through AT&T, Sprint, Verizon Wireless and select Apple Authorized Resellers.

iPhone 4S will be available in the U.S., Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Japan and the UK on Friday, October 14 and customers can pre-order their iPhone 4S beginning Friday, October 7. iPhone 4 will also be available for just $99 (US) and iPhone 3GS will be available for free with a two year contract.

Siri will be available in beta on iPhone 4S in English (localized for US, UK and Australia), French and German. iOS 5 software will be available on October 12 as a free software update via iTunes 10.5 for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch customers.

In late September, AppleInsider pegged the weekend of Oct. 14 for the release of the iPhone 4S, due to sources indicating that Apple had blacked out employee vacations during the second week of October.

A much bigger screen, you know, like every high end smart phone except the iPhone has. And a design which is actually comfortable to hold wouldn't be a bad idea either.

I don't want a brick in my pocket and neither does the general consumer. The only way Apple can make the iPhone screen bigger without fragmenting the market is to scale it up (rather than increasing its resolution). It might have been nice on an edge-to-edge screen, but nowhere near as important as the speed/graphics updates. I'm glad they don't believe I want a brick in my pocket.

P.S. No, not like 'every other smartphone'.

An elegant redesign on the back would have been neat.
(Again, not an overly important feature).

P.P.S. If you're looking for a huge screen, give up on Apple. Not going to happen.

The true measure of a man is how he treats someone that can do him absolutely no good. Samuel Johnson

I didn't really need a dual core CPU, but it's given anyway with the A5 in the iPad 2.
8MP and 1080p video... Well, all nice and good but that's what DSLRs are for, not phones. It's just specmanship. Siri voice control? Ah, not so exciting. Active antennas? Never had a real problem with the iPhone4 in a case. Maybe for AT&T it's going to be helpful.

So after all this time we get a faster iPhone 4. Wow. Maybe the iPhone hardware team we're on an extended break or something, as this is incredibly lazy stuff.

You can't refresh the design of the hardware every year and make money! They added more functionality inside and beefed it up quite a bit. Actually, I think it's a good refresh. Faster CPU and graphics, better camera, antenna, more networks allowed, global. Very nice adds!!!

disappointing event, no new iPhone just a re-cooked iPhone 4, true to form as in the past (see iPhone 3GS), I guess they feel they are well in front of the competition there is no need of anything new. I don't see many iPhone users upgrading to 'this', 3G and 3GS sure but not 4s. I guess we have to wait another 12 months to see anything new.

I don't want a brick in my pocket and neither does the general consumer. The only way Apple can make the iPhone screen bigger without fragmenting the market is to scale it up (rather than increasing its resolution). It might have been nice on an edge-to-edge screen, but nowhere near as important as the speed/graphics updates. I'm glad they don't believe I want a brick in my pocket.

P.S. No, not like 'every other smartphone'.

An elegant redesign on the back would have been neat.
(Again, not an overly important feature).

P.P.S. If you're looking for a huge screen, give up on Apple. Not going to happen.

The beauty of choice. What was stopping Apple putting out a tweaked iPhone 4 for those who don't want anything new, and a much larger iPhone 5 to compete with the Nexus Prime and the other high end stuff? Give people the option, choice is good. As it stands Apple seems happy to occupy the middle ground, leaving the high end stuff to Google.

An elegant redesign on the back would have been neat.
(Again, not an overly important feature).

Tell me which major Apple product wasn't redesigned in a great way. I can think of the iPhone "3GS" which was because Steve was not well, and now the iPhone 4S.

MacBook, MacBook Air, iPhone, iPhone 3G, iPhone4, iPad, iPad2... Killer internals but killer, desirable design that challenged everything we knew and made things new again. Pick up an iPad2 and the iPad1 is nowhere near it.

I think iPhone 5 will be out in June / July 2012...back to the normal announcement schedule.
iPad - Spring
iPhone - Summer
iPod - Fall
Guess the rumors were right about one phone...not really surprised.

I agree, I seriously doubt Apple will make a habit of announcing new iPhone and iPod models at the same annual event. Releasing an iPhone in summer was/is a great way to keep Apple in the news year round with new releases every 3-4 months (iPad > iPhone > iPod) mixed in with Macbooks here and there. Can't go from iPad in April to nothing until October every year. The Japan disaster, misc issues, and new iOS pushed things back this year, I believe. I'm hoping for an iP5 next summer.

The beauty of choice. What was stopping Apple putting out a tweaked iPhone 4 for those who don't want anything new, and a much larger iPhone 5 to compete with the Nexus Prime and the other high end stuff? Give people the option, choice is good. As it stands Apple seems happy to occupy the middle ground, leaving the high end stuff to Google.

It seems like you don't really understand how Apple works. They're going to keep things as simple as they can, and one of the main things they're going to avoid is fragmentation in the App Store. Screens with a different resolution are probably going to be avoided. They could potentially go smaller with half resolution (ala pre-'Retina' displays) though.

That you describe Google's domain as 'high-end' ground is a pretty clear tell on your position, though. Apple is competing in the 'high-end' ground and only the high-end ground. That some Android phones have bigger screens does not make them more 'high-end' than the iPhone. It just makes them a little nicer for tech folk who are more concerned with the size of their screen than general usability and portability (exempting folks with really fat fingers).

Apple is doing just fine with a single series of models.

The true measure of a man is how he treats someone that can do him absolutely no good. Samuel Johnson

It seems like you don't really understand how Apple works. They're going to keep things as simple as they can, and one of the main things they're going to avoid is fragmentation in the App Store. Screens with a different resolution are probably going to be avoided. They could potentially go smaller with half resolution (ala pre-'Retina' displays) though.

That you describe Google's domain as 'high-end' ground is a pretty clear tell on your position, though. Apple is competing in the 'high-end' ground and only the high-end ground. That some Android phones have bigger screens does not make them more 'high-end' than the iPhone. It just makes them a little nicer for tech folk who are more concerned with the size of their screen than general usability and portability (exempting folks with really fat fingers).

I was hoping for something a little bit amazing. To me this is just another iphone 4 with beefed up specs. Just like the Droid line of Android phones. I don't know if I want to get this or the Galaxy S II Epic Touch (Sprint). It seems like every feature they're talking about is already implemented in Android. And no I'm not an Android Fan Boy..I'm a smartphone fan boy.

Anyways...I am more than impressed with Siri....I know I'd never ever ever use it except the alarm thing which I use on Android already but that "note that I spent 12 on lunch" is awesome. Plus just the general way you speak to it is cool too...seems much more natural. As opposed to shouting demands.